Around two years ago the hugely popular battle royale game PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds or PUBG was banned in India. The reason given for this varied across different topics one being that it was too violent and increased such feelings in the players.
Soon after though, Krafton the Korean game developers behind PUBG launched a very India-specific game called Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI).
However, in an interesting turn of events, the game has once again been banned and removed from Google Play Store and Apple store in India. But what could have been the cause of banning the game once more?
Indian PUBG Banned Again
On 28th July, Google and Apple removed the Battleground Mobile India (BGMI) game from their play stores. As per a Time of India report, Google stated that this was gone as part of a government order. Till yet no official statement has been made by the Indian government on why such a step was taken.
Statements from the ministry of home affairs (MHA), as well as the ministry of information technology (MeitY), are awaited still, but Google and Krafton both have put out statements regarding the issue.
Google spokesperson stated that “On receipt of the order, following the established process, we have notified the affected developer and have blocked access to the app that remained available on the Play Store in India.”
A spokesperson on behalf of Krafton said “We are clarifying how BGMI was removed from Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store and will let you know once we get specific information”.
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While there has been no official comment from the Indian government on the ban, reports believe that it is due to an incident recently where a 16-year-old boy allegedly shot his mother because she did not let him play “online games like PubG”.
Rajya Sabha MP V Vijayasai Reddy had also stated that “some children have also committed crimes when they were restrained from playing the game” and informed the IT Ministry to take action against such apps.
Minister of State for Electronics & IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar had said though that they were going over such apps that had been banned before but were coming out with a new avatar. He said “There are various reports and grievances received in Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), conveying that apps that were blocked are appearing with new avatar by using similar sounding names or rebranded with the same functionality.
All such reports and grievances have been forwarded to Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), the requesting agency, for examination. MeitY follows the due process as defined in the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009”.
Image Credits: Google Images
Feature Image designed by Saudamini Seth
Sources: The Indian Express, TOI, Moneycontrol
Find the blogger: @chirali_08
This post is tagged under: BGMI, BGMI ban, BGMI google play store, google play store india, Battlegrounds Mobile India, indian pubg, pubg ban inidia, krafton, krafton pubg, krafton indian pubg, krafton bgmi, bgmi ban india, bgmi game ban
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